Linda Fairstein

Linda Fairstein (5 May 1947-) was an American prosecutor and the head of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office Sex Crimes Unit from 1976 to 2002. She was best-known for her role in the Central Park jogger case, during which she framed five juvenile African-American and Hispanic males for the rape and assault of Trisha Meili.

Biography
Linda Fairstein was born in Mount Vernon, New York in 1947, and she joined the Manhattan District Attorney's office in 1972 as an Assistant District Attorney. She was promoted to head of the sex crimes unit in 1976, and she prosecuted controversial and highly publicized cases. In 1990, she oversaw the prosecution of five juveniles as part of the Central Park jogger case, insisting that the five innocent boys were part of a 30-man rape gang which assaulted several people around Central Park in 1989. She was motivated by her lack of patience with the NYPD's failure to prevent over 3,000 women from being raped in New York City in 1989, and she framed the boys as "thugs", "animals", and other horrific epithets, even going so far as to attempt to change around the evidence so as to implicate them and ensure that somebody was convicted of Trisha Meili's rape. The five boys were found guilty, but the case was vacated in 2002 after a man already in prison confessed to the rpae. Fairstein left the DA's office in 2002 and became a consultant, writer, and lecturer on sex crimes.